


Fight

by littlemisscurious



Series: Tom, Louise and Maggie [19]
Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, F/M, Hurt, Illness, Pain, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 20:43:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1401823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemisscurious/pseuds/littlemisscurious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>mention/depiction of illness/death (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia to be precise); I did my research but if there's anything I depicted wrongly, please let me know. I am not intending to offend anyone!!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fight

_ _

_ _

 

 _Interviewer:_ Mr Hiddleston, can you tell us about the moment when you found out that your wife’s illness was worse than expected? How did you react? How did you cope?

 _Tom:_ To be honest, I am not quite sure you can call it ‘coping’. What other choice did I have other than to go on and fight, not only for my sake but especially for the sake of my daughter? But anyway…

 

_5 years earlier_

_“Hey, you’re up early.” Surprised, Tom looked up as Louise entered the kitchen, her long, brown hair cascading down her back while she padded over the cold tiles towards him. Gently, he placed the cup of coffee aside and wrapped his arms around her when she snuggled up to him._

_“I couldn’t sleep any longer without you by my side,” she whispered after a while, her voice croaky, betraying the falling tears which slowly soaked the thin fabric of his shirt right beneath his collarbone._

_“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Next time I’ll come back up to bed.” Tom swallowed, once, twice, desperately trying to fight off the tears that threatened to leave his own eyes now. Sleeping alone. He will have to get used to that once she’ll be admitted to hospital permanently._

_Which would be soon._

_They had been told the day before._

_Radiation therapy._

_Intravenous and intrathecal chemotherapy on their own did no longer work, the doctors had said, so radiation therapy was the next step. At least that’s what he had understood._

_So many words had been thrown at them in that white, sterile doctor’s office, so many words he did not understand, that maybe he did not want to understand. As if ignorance would make it all go away._

_They hadn’t talked much on their way back home; they had only held hands as if through this contact of skin on skin, through the heat exchanged from his body to hers and back again, all those unspoken words, all those words that hurt too much to say them out loud, could be said and denied and forgotten._

_Nothing could be forgotten, of course they knew that. Nothing could chase this big, dark, looming cloud away that hung over their family like a constant threat. No one knew when a lightning bolt would strike, no one knew when the thunder would start to roll._

_“Tom?” Again, only a whisper, almost as if her voice, that strong, beautiful voice, was already signalling defeat in the face of such a threat._

_“Yes, my love?”_

_“I want to shave off my hair,” Lou breathed against his neck, her lips barely touching his skin while more tears rolled down her pretty, rosy cheeks._

_“Okay.” He wouldn’t try to convince her otherwise. There was no point._

_Because he knew the reason why._

_“Would you like me to call your stylist? Because I can’t do it, sweetheart. I’m sorry, but I can’t,” he mumbled against her soft, brown hair. He would miss it, for sure, but all he wanted was for her to feel okay. If that was possible at all._

_Slowly, she nodded. “I know you can’t and I would never ask you to do it. I hope Jamie has time, though. I’d like to get it done today, before Maggie comes back from your Mum’s.”_

_Gently, he peeled her off himself to look at her properly, to look into her hazel eyes that had lost their sparkle already and now looked so tired and sad. “I’m by your side all the way, Lou. I’ll be with you no matter what, I want you to know that. You’re not alone, you’ll never be. No matter what happens, I’m here.”_

_Again, she nodded, her fingers desperately holding onto the thin fabric of his shirt as if that could prevent herself from falling. “I love you, Tom. I love you so very much and I never wanted that to happen. I never wanted to make you sad. There’s so much I still wanted to do with you and with Maggie and...Please promise me you’ll do it with her instead. Go and explore the world, every little bit of it. Show her how wonderful life can be, especially by your side. Please do that for me.”_

_A sob left his mouth before he was able to hold it back and he had to force himself to nod. She had stopped talking about her life after cancer. From now on it was only his and Maggie’s future, no longer her own. No more plans for her, no more adventures, no more lists of ‘things to do before I die’._

_Because there was no time. There was no time for any of it anymore._

_Radiation therapy._

_It helped to save the life of others. For her it was only about making her life that little bit longer, to postpone the inevitable for a few more days or weeks or months._

_But were they worth all that pain?_

_Tom’s answer to that question was yes simply because he didn’t want to let her go._

_But what was Lou’s?_

_Hers was to shave her hair. To shave off her long, wonderful curls before radiation could take it away, slowly and humiliatingly. Shaving it off was her personal way to fight a fight which, ultimately, could only be lost. The question, however, was after how many rounds she was forced to give up. For now, there was another round to tackle._

 

 _Tom:_ She still looked gorgeous afterwards, to me anyway. She always looked like the most beautiful woman on earth in my eyes. But that day was about so much more than just the loss of her hair. She seemed a little stronger afterwards, a bit more self-confident because she’d made the decision herself instead of cancer forcing it on her. Obviously, it didn’t change the...the outcome. But it was important for her and that’s all that mattered to me. She was all that mattered to me and some things will never change. And I’ll make sure my daughter grows up with that knowledge, every day of every year to come.


End file.
